


The Island of Misfit Angels

by heartbreakordeath



Series: Late Night Writes [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Homeless Castiel (Supernatural), Light Angst, Season/Series 09, based on a twitter thread, human!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22044364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartbreakordeath/pseuds/heartbreakordeath
Summary: Castiel doesn't know what it's like to be human.Not yet.But he's starting to learn, now.
Series: Late Night Writes [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/692613
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	The Island of Misfit Angels

**Author's Note:**

> a late-night fic inspired by [this twitter thread](https://twitter.com/nwalks/status/1209273220530102272?s=20)

Castiel doesn’t know what it’s like to be human.

He doesn’t understand why Sam and Dean spend so many of their hours sleeping and eating and drinking and defecating. He doesn’t get why their emotions are so erratic, how he could just as easily get a smile one moment and a scowl the next. 

He tries, really, to understand it. He watches them and compares them to the other people they encounter, tries to hold conversations with them and (usually) fails miserably for some unknown reason. He pays attention to the way Sam and Dean and everyone else looks at him- like he’s a human, in the body that that used to belong to Jimmy Novak. In a way, they look at him like he _is_ Jimmy, because who else could he be?

Castiel watches as, over and over, Sam and Dean get punched and kicked and tortured and slammed against walls, beaten within an inch of their lives, threatened and knocked unconscious and killed. He watches as, despite all of it, they pull themselves to their feet again and again and again even as the light in their eyes fades and fades. There’s nothing he can do about that, as much as he hopes he could. He can only watch as the liquor bottles pile up and the motels and bunkers go dark and quiet, as the wallets and bodies grow thinner and the conversations become clipped and tense.

Sam and Dean aren’t normal humans; they never have been. But Castiel assumes that even normal humans are like this, that it is simply different for the Winchesters because of their unique lifestyle. Because of the way the whole world seems to lie on their shoulders, the weight of which they will never quite be able to shake. Because they have experienced the most terrible and horrifying things, things that will give them nightmares for the rest of their lives; and though they are the strongest men Castiel has ever met, he knows that even they have a breaking point. He’s seen it firsthand.

But mostly, what he doesn’t understand about humanity is why Sam and Dean look at demons as if they’re still human. Why they’re still reluctant to chop off the head of a monster with the face of a person, after all these years. Why they fall, time and time again, for the same old traps, just because they made the wrong call in who to trust. They’ve faced all these monsters before, these _things_ that are either no longer human or never have been, and yet they still hesitate. 

It makes him wonder if they ever look at him like that. Like he’s one of them, not a celestial being who in another life could be smiting them at a glance. Like he’s not some sort of alien to them, a creature who, no matter how hard he tries, will never have anybody to love him.

* * *

But then he is human.

But then, he _has_ to understand.

He has to spend his time resting, eating whatever food he can find, heaving it all up into a dingy toilet bowl when his stomach rejects it. He has to go to the bathroom every few hours, and it annoys him, and he wonders why his father ever would have wanted to create beings that are forced to waste so much of their precious time.

Because time is _important_ now; it’s of the essence. Now, it matters whether it’s dark or not, because dark means coldness and silence and _darkness_. Now, he can’t see around him when the sun sinks over the horizon, and all he can do is look for a place to lay his head for a few hours.

Money is important now, too. Cas had always known, even as an angel, that money was rarely ever a good thing. He’d seen it with the Winchesters, when a credit card scam didn’t come through, or there were no overly confident (or inebriated) pool players to hustle cash from. He knows it in the way Dean’s eyes reverted back to some other time, perhaps his youth, when it was an everyday occurrence for him to go hungry. He knows from the way Dean walks around the bunker, tenser than usual, snapping at anybody who dared to speak to him, and always, without fail, making sure Sam had enough to eat. Looking back, Cas wishes he could have helped more- helped with the scams, helped steal food or cash, anything. Anything to prevent the Winchesters from ever feeling the way he does now.

* * *

Slowly, though, he begins to see things that confuse him even further. It starts when he’s hunched over against a rough brick wall, arms wrapped around his stomach as he fends off the hunger pains. He can’t even remember the last time he’s had anything to eat; swapping quarters for vending machine granola bars can only go so far.

He’s alone on the street, or so he thinks. It’s dusk, the wind picking up and slipping through the holes in his worn-out jacket. He shivers, whether from hunger or cold he isn’t sure, and sinks to the ground. 

He’s not sure how long he crouches there, helpless and cold and alone, alone, _so_ alone- before he jerks at a hand on his shoulder. Squinting against the impending darkness, he looks into the eyes of a man. His face has seen many years, but his eyes tell Cas he is much younger than he looks. His face is one that has known the streets, known hunger and cold and loneliness like Castiel is starting to now.

It takes him a moment to register that the man is asking if he’s alright. In another moment he’s being handed a half of a sandwich, which Cas takes against his better instincts. The second he smells the ham he starts eating it, teeth tearing through the stale white bread like it’s the last thing he’ll ever eat.

These days, he never knows. Maybe it might be.

When he looks up, hunger curbed for now as he wraps up the remaining quarter of the sandwich in the parchment paper it came in, he’s alone again on the sidewalk.

* * *

It happens again when he finds a shelter, and after a few days on the cold sidewalk a tired-looking woman checks him in and assigns him a bed for the night. He walks down the dimly lit hall, keeping his eyes down like the rest of the residents as he tries to find his room.

He’s sharing with a middle-aged man, who has a sickly-looking son attached to his side when Castiel enters. They eye him warily with matching brown eyes, and he gives them a small, hesitant smile as he tosses his bag on the top bunk.

There’s a small cafeteria, and he joins everyone else in eagerly grabbing servings of thin soup and saltines. He sits across from a woman and her two children. They’re mostly quiet, whispering amongst themselves as they eat, so Castiel keeps to himself as well. He realizes belatedly that they’re not speaking in a language he understands.

He looks up when one of the daughters raises her voice. She seems to be arguing with the woman, trying to push her packet of saltines across the table towards her. The woman shakes her head and says something to the girl that makes her roll her eyes exasperatedly.

Before he can even think about doing anything, the second daughter sighs and interrupts them, tossing her own crackers in between them and downing the rest of her soup. Castiel frowns and looks down at his own empty bowl and wrapper, stomach still disappointingly empty. When he looks up again, the three of them are leaving the table with their empty bowls. He sits there, pondering for a bit, before he returns his bowl and trudges down the hall to his bedroom.

* * *

He starts to get it when he walks into a convenience store one morning. He just needs some food, really, maybe another toothbrush if he can afford it. He surveys the aisles as he goes, just in case, even though he knows that if he spots something else he wants, he’ll have to give up the toothbrush. _Priorities_ , he tries to remember, as he turns away from the cold bottled water in the fridges. Public water fountains will do just fine.

He’s nearly at the register when he sees it. He supposes it’s because it’s out of place in the store, but he can’t help that it catches his eye anyway. It’s shoved on a shelf between cans of bug spray, looking dusty and sad. He frowns, remembering that Easter had been weeks ago, when he notices why it’s still sitting there.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he walks up to the register and pays in crumpled dollar bills and an assortment of coins: two granola bars, a frail plastic toothbrush, and a small stuffed rabbit with one ear missing.

It’s not until he leaves that he looks back and notices the sign he’d missed on the way in: **HELP WANTED**.

* * *

Cas doesn’t know what it’s like to be human. He doesn’t know how to be one.

But now, slowly but surely, he’s doing the most human thing he can: learning.


End file.
